Reading the Silences of the Text: Space, Word, and Japanese Linked Poetry

Reading the Silences of the Text: Space, Word, and Japanese Linked Poetry

Audio recording of a lecture given by Esperanza Ramirez-Christensen on September 27, 2024 as part of the Dean's Lecture & Concert Series. The Dean's Office has provided this description of the event: "Renga is a hundred-verse sequence composed during a session by a group of 3 to 10 or more poets in the Japanese medieval period (12th-16th c.); it is the precursor of the kasen, the shorter 36-verse version popular among Basho and his group in the early modern period. This lecture examines the socio-historical and cultural conditions that made such a unique genre possible, including the rules of progression from verse 1 to 100, and casts light on the way of reading the poem in its own time. We will pay attention to the influence of Buddhist philosophy in the understanding of poetry's function and practice in premodern Japan while reading 'Broken Beneath Snow,' a renga composed by a group of samurai and monks under the guidance of the renowned poet-monk Shinkei in the winter of 1468 in Tokyo. We will also look at examples of US college student renga from my Great Books classes as one of the genre's possible translations into a Western social poetry practice using the Internet."

Santa Fe, NM

2024-09-27

Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online.

sound

mp3

English

SF_Ramirez-ChristensenE_2024-09-27

m4a

00:58:56